
Albert Schmidt - One of the humour's
founding fathers.
Albert was a very funny chap. He graduated from the Bavarian
Academy of Humour laughing his way through a side splitting academic
career. His final thesis "An Anthropological Analysis of the Role of the Joke in Dutch Society" won him meteoric fame with the Dutch who embraced his ideas with typical
poker faced detachment............ but in vast numbers.
Introducing humour to the Dutch was his career's crowning glory: a colossal piece of social engineering on a par with the
Polder Reclamation Projects. A true hero who, inspired with success, went on to meet his demise attempting to introduce
humour into Norway... it was Albert's Waterloo. He tried to make light of it but succumbed to a terminal
case of inflamed grumpy glands and sadly passed away without so much as a giggle. He died in nineteen hundred and fish and chips... His last words apparently were "Martha, Where did you put the Javex?"
The zenith of his spirit is still celebrated in community food halls and
canteens all over Norway, where pockets of humour gained a stubborn foothold. In sympathetic parts Albert was considered
the patron saint of all things that aren't serious. In other parts however he was reviled as a revolutionary spreading
laughter.
His pioneering spirit
lives amongst us today and Norwegian children laugh and play round his statue completely unaware of Albert's heroic struggle.
"Ya Norwegian people make plenty
laughing now." Said Haans Haansonson.
"We especially laugh at Canadian comedian Stephen Harper...
Yar! Ha! Ha! Ha! Very funny man with very funny hair Yar! Har! Har!